Article by
Barbados Today

Published on
December 16, 2013

The National Union of Public Workers is holding out that the best solution which Government can present to them, is that no worker will be sent home from within the public Service.
General secretary Dennis Clarke revealed this today in an interview with Barbados TODAY following an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, just three days after it was announced that 3,000 public sector employees would be slashed from government’s payroll at earliest, January 15 next year.
“We sought to get an assurance that the way was still open for us to sit and negotiate a better position. [One better] than what was announced by the Minister of Finance [Chris Sinckler], because we believe that given the nature and structure of the Civil Service, there has to be a methodology . . . there are some alternatives that would allow the Government to keep [and] not to go as deep with cuts in respect to temporary workers,” he said.
The NUPW boss noted that the assurance had been given by the Prime Minister that the door was still open to talks, and in this regard, the union would be preparing its submissions to present to the Ministry of the Civil Service so that negotiations could begin later this week.
He also rubbished suggestions coming from some social commentators that the Public Service needed to be trimmed as a matter of urgency and the cuts announced was a step in the right direction.
“There are a lot out there on the Civil Service who don’t have a clue about what happens in the public service and how things are done. You can’t just simply jump up one day and cut works like that. You have got to look and see . . .
“It means then that you are looking to close down certain Governmental services. I don’t think that they would want that to happen just simply because you get reckless and cut . . . . It is something that we are sitting down and we are examining and we are putting proposals on the table and hopefully we should get back to the Ministry of the Civil service between now and the end of the week,” Clarke stated.
Meanwhile, the union has called all temporary workers from within the general service and statutory boards on Thursday evening at 4 p.m. at the Union’s Dalkeith headquarters.
The executive council will meet tomorrow. ryangilkes@barbadostoday.bb